The Digital Walters is a branch of The Walters Art Museum Manuscripts Department.
The Digital Walters is a branch of The Walters Art Museum Manuscripts Department.
Produced in the early thirteenth century, this manuscript is an important textual witness to the Historia Anglorum, the History of the English People, by Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon. The first version of Henry of Huntingdon’s text had a terminal date of 1129, though there were four more updates containing events through 1135, 1138, 1148, and 1154. Walters W.793 represents the fourth version, covering the events from Britain’s first leaders up to 1148, in which the number of books was increased from eight to ten and three letters by the author were added. The text contains several colored foliate initials, though it is especially notable for its line drawing of King Stephen (d. 1154), grandson of William the Conqueror, and his earls before the Battle of Lincoln on February 2, 1141 (fol. 105r). It is closely related to British Library, Arundel Ms. 48, which is believed to have been the model from which Walters W.793 was copied. Both copies may have been based on a prototype extant during the lifetime of Henry of Blois (d. 1171). Of the approximately three dozen surviving manuscript copies of the Historia Anglorum, only eight predate W.793. It and Arundel 48 are the only known illustrated exemplars.
Pre-Gothic bookhand; lists of kings in margins of fols. 106v-107v by different hands in late anglicana script
Principal cataloger: Herbert, Lynley
Principal cataloger: Noel, William
Principal cataloger: Smith, Kathryn
Cataloger: Grollemond, Larisa
Cataloger: Walters Art Museum curatorial staff and researchers since 1934
Editor: Dibble, Charles
Editor: Herbert, Lynley
Editor: Noel, William
Copy editor: Bockrath, Diane
Contributor: Bockrath, Diane
Contributor: Dutschke, Consuelo
Contributor: Emery, Doug
Contributor: Noel, William
Contributor: Tabritha, Ariel
Contributor: Toth, Michael B.
Conservator: Owen, Linda
Conservator: Quandt, Abigail
Henry of Huntingdon. Historia Anglorum: The History of the English People, ed. Diane E. Greenway. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.
De Hamel, C. “Bestiary.” In P. Binski and S. Panayotova, eds., The Cambridge Illuminations: Ten Centuries of Book Production in the Medieval West. London: Harvey Miller, 2010, p. 310.
Randall, L.M.C. “Dorothy Miner Memorial Purchase: Historia Anglorum by Henry of Huntingdon.” The Walters Art Gallery Bulletin 31, no. 1 (November 1978).
Collard, J. “Henry I’s Dream in John of Worcester’s Chronicle (Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS 157) and the Illustration of Twelfth-Century English Chronicles.” Journal of Medieval History 36 (2010): pp. 105-125, at pp. 115, 119-21.
Morgan, N.J. Early Gothic Manuscripts (1): 1190-1250. A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, Volume 4, London: Harvey Miller, 1982, pp. 67, 138.
Greenway, D.E. “Henry of Huntingdon and the Manuscripts of His Historia Anglorum.” In R. Allen Brown, ed., Anglo-Norman Studies IX: Proceedings of the Battle Conference, 1986, Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1987, pp. 103-26, at p. 103 n.9
Kleinbauer, W.E. “Recent Major Acquisitions of Medieval Art by American Museums: Number Three.” Gesta 20, no. 2 (1981), p. 365.
These are pages that we pulled aside that disrupted the flow of the manuscript reader. These may be bindings, inserts, bookmarks, and various other oddities.
Winchester (?), England
First half of the 13th century CE
book
Non-original Binding
Nineteenth-century English binding, wooden boards covered with brown velvet edged with twentieth-century brown morocco; central embossed silver shield with Grosvenor garb and pierced sheet-silver corner guards and clasp hinge
The primary language in this manuscript is Latin. The secondary language of this manuscript is English, Middle (1100-1500).
Thomas Dakcomb, Winchester priest and canon : "liber domini Thome dakcomb 1548 pr[ecium]..." inscribed on fol. 1 (partly effaced) (provenance)
Probably Robert Grosvenor, Second Earl Grosvenor and first Marquis of Westminster
Nineteenth-century book-dealer note
Sotheby's, sale of July 11, 1966, lot 227
Major John Roland Abbey
Sotheby's, sale of June 20, 1978, lot 2978
Walters Art Museum purchase, Dorothy Miner Memorial purchase, 1978
Winchester (?), England
First half of the 13th century CE
book
The primary language in this manuscript is Latin. The secondary language of this manuscript is English, Middle (1100-1500).
Thomas Dakcomb, Winchester priest and canon : "liber domini Thome dakcomb 1548 pr[ecium]..." inscribed on fol. 1 (partly effaced) (provenance)
Probably Robert Grosvenor, Second Earl Grosvenor and first Marquis of Westminster
Nineteenth-century book-dealer note
Sotheby's, sale of July 11, 1966, lot 227
Major John Roland Abbey
Sotheby's, sale of June 20, 1978, lot 2978
Walters Art Museum purchase, Dorothy Miner Memorial purchase, 1978
Produced in the early thirteenth century, this manuscript is an important textual witness to the Historia Anglorum, the History of the English People, by Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon. The first version of Henry of Huntingdon’s text had a terminal date of 1129, though there were four more updates containing events through 1135, 1138, 1148, and 1154. Walters W.793 represents the fourth version, covering the events from Britain’s first leaders up to 1148, in which the number of books was increased from eight to ten and three letters by the author were added. The text contains several colored foliate initials, though it is especially notable for its line drawing of King Stephen (d. 1154), grandson of William the Conqueror, and his earls before the Battle of Lincoln on February 2, 1141 (fol. 105r). It is closely related to British Library, Arundel Ms. 48, which is believed to have been the model from which Walters W.793 was copied. Both copies may have been based on a prototype extant during the lifetime of Henry of Blois (d. 1171). Of the approximately three dozen surviving manuscript copies of the Historia Anglorum, only eight predate W.793. It and Arundel 48 are the only known illustrated exemplars.
Pre-Gothic bookhand; lists of kings in margins of fols. 106v-107v by different hands in late anglicana script
Principal cataloger: Herbert, Lynley
Principal cataloger: Noel, William
Principal cataloger: Smith, Kathryn
Cataloger: Grollemond, Larisa
Cataloger: Walters Art Museum curatorial staff and researchers since 1934
Editor: Dibble, Charles
Editor: Herbert, Lynley
Editor: Noel, William
Copy editor: Bockrath, Diane
Contributor: Bockrath, Diane
Contributor: Dutschke, Consuelo
Contributor: Emery, Doug
Contributor: Noel, William
Contributor: Tabritha, Ariel
Contributor: Toth, Michael B.
Conservator: Owen, Linda
Conservator: Quandt, Abigail
Henry of Huntingdon. Historia Anglorum: The History of the English People, ed. Diane E. Greenway. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.
De Hamel, C. “Bestiary.” In P. Binski and S. Panayotova, eds., The Cambridge Illuminations: Ten Centuries of Book Production in the Medieval West. London: Harvey Miller, 2010, p. 310.
Randall, L.M.C. “Dorothy Miner Memorial Purchase: Historia Anglorum by Henry of Huntingdon.” The Walters Art Gallery Bulletin 31, no. 1 (November 1978).
Collard, J. “Henry I’s Dream in John of Worcester’s Chronicle (Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS 157) and the Illustration of Twelfth-Century English Chronicles.” Journal of Medieval History 36 (2010): pp. 105-125, at pp. 115, 119-21.
Morgan, N.J. Early Gothic Manuscripts (1): 1190-1250. A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, Volume 4, London: Harvey Miller, 1982, pp. 67, 138.
Greenway, D.E. “Henry of Huntingdon and the Manuscripts of His Historia Anglorum.” In R. Allen Brown, ed., Anglo-Norman Studies IX: Proceedings of the Battle Conference, 1986, Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1987, pp. 103-26, at p. 103 n.9
Kleinbauer, W.E. “Recent Major Acquisitions of Medieval Art by American Museums: Number Three.” Gesta 20, no. 2 (1981), p. 365.
These are pages that we pulled aside that disrupted the flow of the manuscript reader. These may be bindings, inserts, bookmarks, and various other oddities.
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